What an anniversary present! Hillier Nurseries & Garden Centres has secured its legacy as the most successful exhibitor in the history of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with a 69th consecutive Chelsea Gold Medal.

Says Andrew McIndoe, Managing Director of Hillier: “We are absolutely thrilled to have won Gold in our 150th anniversary year! 2014 is a huge milestone for Hillier, and winning our 69th consecutive Gold is a fantastic recognition of the skills, expertise and dedication of everyone at Hillier Nurseries & Garden Centres.”

“The Hillier Exhibit looking particularly stunning this year,” adds Andrew McIndoe. “This is due in no small part to the work of Ricky Dorlay, who has done a spectacular job once again in preparing all our plant material.” (Ricky & Andrew pictured above.)

“Hillier’s Chelsea Exhibit is actually a series of smaller gardens, inspired by the history of Hillier but given a contemporary twist. It is packed with ideas and planting schemes that today’s gardeners could recreate in their own gardens.”

President of Hillier Nurseries, John Hillier, has helped to stage the Hillier Exhibit at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for the past 55 years. John joined Jean Hillier (wife of Robert Hillier and the author of Hillier: The Plants, The People, The Passion) on the Hillier Exhibit for a group photograph (see above), surrounded by their children and grandchildren – the youngest just 4 years old. John cut the specially created Hillier 150th anniversary cake.

Victorian reenactors added a touch of history to the celebrations, dressed in the clothes of journeyman gardeners that Edwin Hillier would have worn in 1864 at the time he founded Hillier Nurseries & Garden Centres

About HillierRoyal Warrant Holders to HM the Queen, Hillier Nurseries are known as growers of an unbeatably wide range of trees and shrubs: a reputation established by the late Sir Harold Hillier whose private collection of plants and trees became the world- renowned Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and the basis for the ‘plantsman’s bible’, the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs.

Hillier’s Wholesale Nursery division grows shrubs and perennials for quality garden retailers nationwide, and its Research and Development continues Hillier’s tradition of innovation and introduction of excellent new garden plants.

Hillier’s Amenity division is one of the biggest tree growers in Europe, specialising in semi-mature specimen trees for high- profile landscape projects. The nursery, voted International Grower of the Year, supplied more than 4,000 trees for the London 2012 Olympic Park.

Hillier runs 13 garden centres across the South of England and its Gardening Club has more than 250,000 members.